Nursing assistant turned prostitute: ‘It felt like easy money’

During last year’s Twilight series, Investigative Reporter AASMA DAY spoke to a nursing assistant who admitted she had worked as a prostitute for eight months for extra cash.

One year on, we find out that the mum of two suffered a huge setback after being lured back into the seedy world of selling her body.

Many people harbour the stereotype that women who enter the world of prostitution do it to feed a heroin or drink habit.

However, Amy*, 30, who lives in Preston, was not your typical prostitute as she was married with two children, lived in a nice home and had a respectable job as a nursing assistant at the Royal Preston Hospital.

But she became tempted by prostitution as a way of making extra cash to give her family a better life.

Amy socialised with a couple of friends who earned money as sex workers in Blackpool and they encouraged her to join them. She finally caved to the pressure at the thought of being able to buy luxuries for her family.

Amy explains: “I just felt I did not earn enough. My husband has a chronic condition so he cannot work so I was the only breadwinner.

“I just wanted a better life for my children and to be able to buy them treats and quality items instead of always having to say no or buy the cheapest of the cheap.”

As a nursing assistant, Amy was earning just under £200 a week, but by selling her body two or three times a week, she was supplementing her income by £250 to £300 extra a week.

Amy recalls that the first time she prostituted herself, she was terrified as she went to a hotel with a businessman in his late 30s.

Afterwards, she was wracked with guilt for cheating on her husband and tried to blank the incident from her memory.

However, Amy was soon going to Blackpool a few times a week, sleeping with up to two men a night.

In the course of eight months, Amy estimates she slept with around 200 men.

She explains: “It started getting addictive because it felt like easy money.

“The extra cash made life so much easier and I loved being able to buy my children things.”

It all came to an abrupt end after her husband became suspicious about where the extra cash came from.

She tried to hide her secret by telling her husband she had borrowed the money, but eventually she blurted out the truth.

Amy’s husband was furious and left the family home for a while. Amy sank into depression.

She explains: “In my mind, I had kept my home life and my work as a nursing assistant completely separate from what I was doing in Blackpool.

“But after my husband found out, I felt heartbroken, traumatised and bad and dirty.”

Amy eventually confided in a colleague who put her in touch with a counsellor and Amy’s husband returned to the marital home and the couple worked hard to save their marriage.

When we last spoke to Amy, she told us she deeply regretted her time as a prostitute and would never be tempted to return to that lifestyle.

However, one year on, we discover that Amy returned to prostitution for a short time after plunging into debt.

But to get through the ordeal of sleeping with men for cash, Amy turned to cocaine and soon developed an addiction.

Her drug habit led to her getting even more into debt and, when her husband found out she was back on the streets, it led to domestic strife.

Amy, who is no longer working as a nursing assistant, is now having help for her drug habit and has been clean for two months.

She is also having counselling to come to terms with the damage she has done to her self-worth by turning to prostitution.

Amy says: “The easy money you can make by selling your body does not pay the price for the emotional and physical consequence that follows the act.

“The sheer devastation of being paid for sex again messed with my head completely.

“I had just got into debt and thought if I did it again a couple of times, it would be enough to get me out of debt.

“I am now again trying to re-build my life and save my marriage but it is very difficult.

“Prostitution is terrible as it seems so easy to do but the damage is ever lasting.”